26

AMARJEET TOOK UP HIS OLD CHORES AT THE FARM. HE WORKED QUIETLY. Other than his moods, he was dependable; he did not say much and he was not too curious about what had happened while he was away. He enjoyed the children the most: Leela, who was now eight; Federico, who was a year and a half. Sometimes he would put Federico in the baby carriage and wheel him around the farm. Rosa gave birth to twins, Grace and José, and Amarjeet loved them too. He found comfort in the children’s openness, in their sadness and anger and happiness, which they showed without cover or restraint.

Once he overheard his aunt and uncle talking about him—Kishen pointing out to Jivan that his nephew had grown moody. That she found him staring out into the fields, seeing something that wasn’t there. That he had grown angry with her when she had asked if he would be home for dinner. “Be patient, Kishen-ji,” his uncle had said. “The boy has just returned from battle.”

Ram wanted to spend time with him now, in a way he had not wanted before.

“What was it like over there?” Ram asked him once, and Amarjeet did not know what to say.

“What shall I tell you?”

“How did Harry win his medal?”

Amarjeet told him. Then he spoke about the weather.

Amarjeet thought he might, eventually, perhaps when he had rested enough, go back to India and bring back a bride. Ram had failed in bringing Padma, but there was a difference. Ram was not a citizen, and Amarjeet was. He would do this just as soon as he recovered a bit from the war, when he stopped hearing that pounding in his ears, when he could sleep again. He noticed sometimes that Karak and Rosa would argue; he could hear their voices across the expanse between the houses. He met Adela; he noticed Ram and she would share an occasional glance when they thought others weren’t looking. It did not bother him.

What interested him was France and the war. He realized that people at home knew more about it than he had known over there: strategy and battle plans, General Pershing’s refusal to split American forces under British or French command. How that meant more Americans might die than the alternative. How the U.S. Army planned full frontal assault: simply throwing more young bodies at the battle line until Germany ran out of young men to counter them. Was this patriotism? Had it made the world safe for democracy?

Between harvesting and planting he went to the library in El Centro to learn more. The general had issued the order for expedited citizenship just before the first all-American offensive at Saint-Mihiel. So that all the immigrant soldiers would not desert. When Amarjeet read this, his throat went dry. He thought the ploys of strategy were used only against the enemy.